Anything Once

felt no doubt that he would turn up when he got ready. Unwrapping her bundle, she took the apron, soap, and broken comb, and wandered down the bank of the stream until in the seclusion beneath the bridge she came upon a pool formed by outjutting rocks, where she performed her limited toilet. Then, scrubbing the greasy apron vigorously, she hung it on a bramble bush behind the mill to dry, and scuttling across the road, made forthe woods back of the house where she had committed her nocturnal depredation. An hour later when Jim came slowly up the hill road from the direction of Hudson- dale, he saw a tiny smudge of smoke rising from a rock well hidden in the rank undergrowth at the edge of the stream, and approaching it found Lou industriously brushing her coat with a broom which he had improvised of small twigs tied together. Beside her, carefully cradled in her sunbonnet, were half a dozen new-laid eggs. "Good morning." He greeted her with a little bow, and sank down on the rock. "Were you frightened to find yourself left all alone?" "Oh, no. I knew you would come back," she replied serenely. Then, as she noted his glance fall upon the eggs she added in swift self-defense: "You needn't think I stole those; I found them back in the woods a piece. O-oh!" He had carried a large paper package under his arm, and now as he unwrapped it her wonderment changed to swift rapture. It contained an overall apron of bright pinkcheck, a cheap straw hat, and a re...